The entire movies feels you’re in dream. Like how he challenges authority and gets the girl and all that. Don’t think Ill ever see a movie like it again
One thing that always stood out to me the more I thought about it, Donnie Darko came out not too long after the late 90s teen movie boom, aka She's All That / Never Been Kissed / etc. where high school was where you "found yourself" and your true love and just generally peaked in life. Donnie Darko... completely deconstructs and subverts the genre and takes a much darker view of high school, but not necessarily a nihilistic one. And that makes it stand out all the more.
I like Donnie Darko because of how much I've had to think about it in order to understand it. Multiple rewatches and half a lifetime of mulling it over. There's nothing quite like it, it's a very unique and masterfully crafted piece of cinema.
I didn't know he created the portal, as a kid I interpreted it as this was a tangent universe but Donnie realizes he was powerless in all these events and that he laughed because he knew he was going to die, that his death was necessary for everyone else and that it was a coming of age thing. He is depressed, mentally unsound, a bit selfish but by the end he sacrifices himself for everyone
I never really considered the time travel stuff as important and focused more on his journey to understand himself. It could be emotion, mental illness, spiritual or supernatural and that ambiguity made the movie special.
It's a fascinating take on philosophy, adolescence, death, and 'American dream' that is somehow wrapped in a kind of spooky yet hilarious sci-fi package with beautifully written characters. I think it's my favorite movie ever.
I liked the extra and extended scenes in the directors cut that added more to the characters like the ones with Donnie's parents showing how they do care for him and to not feel like another background characters. I however am not a fan of the info dumps and some things feel redundant to me. If I had to explain in what I think, I believe there is a God using Donnie as a vessel to make an impact on people as they have onto him as they still remember their experiences in the tangent universe.
@@garette.s_revenge in this video you can see some of the info dumps that were added in the director's cut: direct pages out of chapters of Roberta Sparrow's book, which jarringly show up in scene transitions at times, and explicitly explain things that were otherwise mostly ambiguous to some degree. There were also some extended scenes and soundtrack changes but the book images were kind of the worst addition imho
The fear part in the school was exactly the same experience I had with school, the teacher gives everyone scenarios with a preset answer and has absolutely no tolerance for nuance in them for some reason. I always got the iffy trick questions, I swear.
I'm surprised there isn't enough discussion about existentialism and religion with this movie, because that's imo what it's really about and made it resonate so much. This film is really about the philosophy of absurdism, and what made it so beautiful and haunting is how it leaves us with the idea that while our individual lives are meaningless, the impact our lives have on others is not. It's really a movie about accepting responsibility by being true in our relationships with others and to ourselves, because the only characters who wake up and weren't upset with their actions in the tangent universe where those who were true to themselves and took responsibility for their actions. Donnie didn't either until the very end, and he was also the most reluctant at doing so. Donnie doesn't wake up laughing from joy, but he does because of the absurdity of the situation of needing to die in order to let others live. He doesn't sacrifice himself out of love for others, but because it is necessary because that is simply his purpose in his life. Calling Donnie a hero in the traditional sense is therefore quite the misnomer, and calling him a Christlike figure is also therefore a misnomer. Donnie is absolutely flawed but at the moment of truth Donnie did the most painful thing a person can do which is to face himself and accept his flaw and the pain it caused him, i.e. that his life is pointless. This is why he keeps asking people about what it's like to die and if there's meaning after death or if god exists and whether there's free will or not, because it was his fear of death and life being pointless that created the tangent universe in the first place. Donnie was presented as a hero but he never was - he was the ultimate coward. He's the villain of the story just told through his perspective. Donnie's vigilante actions don't stem from a desire for justice, but because the fear these people feel by living inauthentically is what gives power to to the tangent universe. So I think the truth about Donnie Darko is really about suffering, and how we experience suffering when we do not live our authentic selves by not considering how we impact our relationships with others and ourselves. Donnie remains human and flawed throughout the entire narrative, he never transcends his human nature. Even at the end before he dies he suffers, but he also accepted his suffering as a necessary part of life and that's what gives him the power to end the tangent universe. People relate because Donnie's story is such a fundamental part of the human experience that if you don't, you're either a sociopath with no ability to experience empathy and care for others, or too young to understand suffering because you've yet to truly experience it. Donnie Darko isn't a science fiction movie or a teen movie with an edgy protagonist who acts as a wish fulfilment power fantasy, but a personal drama about the meaning of life and dealing with the inevitability that we will all die one day. And personally, that's why I love it. A more thoughtful approach from the same era would be the Korean movie Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring again that tells the same fundamental concept through a completely different lens.
i really like this interpretation of it and it runs close to my own. The carthasis at the end of the film when he wakes up laughing at the absurdity of existence and accepting his own mortality and humanity is unmatched by anything else i've ever seen. It's the payoff that comes after spending his time in the tangent universe peeling back the layers and forcing others to confront their inauthenticity, he finally gets to face himself, and what a fucking relief.
Donnie Darko was a "literally me" movie when I was an edgy teenager. Still love the movie now as a slightly edgy adult. Best version of the movie was the one that came in a two-set with Napolean Dynamite. Directors cut is good but the original version just resonated with me more. Love how you went into the different interpretations and all that. Great discussion that get straight to the point.
i like the director’s cut because it added some information we didn’t know without, but i hated that they changed the intro song from “the killing moon”, and how there wasn’t enough left up to interpretation. the reason i fell in love with this movie in the forst place was because of the implicit information, rather than the explicit. it provided enough that you could make up the narrative around the events onscreen, but the director’s cut didn’t leave much room for filling in the gaps.
frank being donnie's sister (Elizabeth darko) boy friend makes so much sense, as frank appears near by the Donnie's house and the last person who entered the house was Elizabeth before the jet engine accident, from her reaction they probably got into argument. and when Donnie wakes up. the manipulated dead frank took normal frank's place due to the tangent universe, that adds so much context then him being some random kid.
This is one of the few movies that I actually enjoyed the director's cut more. Also, I interpreted Donnie waking up laughing as him feeling euphoric that he'd fulfilled his purpose, like an intense feeling of everything being in its right place. Even though he was about to meet a tragic end, he had saved all his loved ones and he would no longer be haunted by Frank's ghost or suffer bouts of sleepwalking. He could finally rest.
Donnie Darko is a film that was waaay ahead of its time during the time it was made. I'm glad to see it finally getting the appreciation it deserves. The characters, the story, the visuals, the postmodernism, this movie is absolutely amazing.
The time travel plot is interesting. I had always thought the film was about death in a sort of predestined sense and that the end of the world was not intact the end of the world but rather the end of his world.
I remember being a kid in high school who was in therapy because authorities deemed me problematic because I socked a bully in the face for relentless bullying. Was put on meds and misdiagnosed. But the meds had side effects. So Donnie is my literally me, I had it first.
The directors cut also has a commentary track with Richard Kelly and Kevin Smith. Worth the listen if your trying to figure out the story. Kevin does a great job of asking question.
I prefer the director’s cut. Hearing Echo & The Bunnymen’s “Killing Moon” be the opening song as he rides his bike back home truly sets the mood. Hell, the whole soundtrack is great and truly gives in to that late 80s setting. I can’t hear Joy Division now without thinking of them hopping out of the back of the bus as it begins playing, and Duran Duran? Sparkle Motion. Mad World? A memey song now, but fits perfectly with the ending. I remember coming across a blogpost about the movie’s website and how you needed passwords to navigate it, which got me interested in it with the whole time travel ordeal. Downloaded the movie from SoulSeek and fell in love with it for some reason. Eventually got the DVD a few years later. It’s a strange one, but I love watching it when October rolls around. Just about everyone I’ve watched it with ends up confused, so they’ll rewatch it a time or two to make sense of everything, ultimately becoming one of those movies they also end up enjoying in the process. My husband considered it one of those “weird movies that the strange kids in high school latched onto because they read about it on DeadJournal” … and well, he wasn’t wrong lol. Still watches it with me, though.
Donnie Darko's time travel is actually pretty tightly plotted compared to most time travel movies. Simply, it explains how time is self-contained, and any changes brought about by time travel creates a new Universe, though in this case, it is merely a fractional Universe that is time-bound in a self-contained causality loop. Never mind that the mechanisms never made any sense. Time machines never make any sense, anyway.
I think I prefer the theatrical cut to the directors purely because the theatrical muddles the waters genre-wise, its unclear whether what is happening is magical or science fiction, it never tells you, whereas the director is much more clear on it being sci-fi orientated removing some of that essential ambiguity. Although I do love the excellent dvd commentary on the directors cut from Kevin Smith and Richard Kelly, who both made their debut feature films around similar ages and talk on how that impacts you creatively, it has excellent insight on both filmmaker's methods.
A few years back one of my friends that I trust for having really good taste recommended this movie to me. The upload no longer exists but at the time it had an official upload that was free to watch on RUclips. I had no idea what it was and I'm so thankful that's how I was exposed to it, I really think going in completely blind to this movie only heightened the experience. They sold it to me as being one of their favorite movies and I can easily see why, the movie is so interesting I remember as soon as it was over spending the next hour doing research to just understand the movie better and learn everything I could about it. I've still only watched it that one time, but it's stuck with me. I think about returning to it constantly but it's one of those movies where I want to focus all of my attention on it to absorb as much of it as possible, and I'm so busy now that it's just a tall order. Now that I know there's a director's cut I'll have to make sure I seek that out and watch it. Excellent video as always Kino, was so excited when I saw you were doing this movie that I took time out of my vacation to make sure I watched it.
I haven't seen this movie. But there's a phenomenon where, if some completely random accident happens to some people, and I hear about it, there's a part of me that feels as though those people chose to be there, and that makes it okay. Like, if I hear there was a terrible plane crash and a bunch of people died, I get this feeling that it's okay because those people knew they were going to be on a crashing plane, and knew that they would die, and chose to do it. It happens with almost any random accident that I hear about. I am more or less conscious of it when I'm feeling this way. It's also an awareness that 'it didn't happen to me,' like I'm disconnecting from what happened. This feeling or interpretation reassures me that it's okay that those people died, and reassures me that I'm okay and that I am disconnected from them. I don't have to connect too much to what happened to them, and I can go on with my own life. I may have moved past this way of seeing things, because I can't remember seeing it that way anytime recently, but I did used to see it that way years ago. I may have more of a harsh view nowadays: I'm opposed to 'blaming the victim,' and instead, I accept the fact that people can really be a helpless victim of a terrible force that is more powerful than they are, without rationalizing that they chose to be victimized. I believe in the existence of real powerlessness.
I rented this film at a Blockbuster years ago and fell in love with it. One key element for me was Roberta Sparrow's or "Grandma Death's" repeated visits to the mailbox. I think she was not being a senile old woman. She was caught in a time warp after writing her book and became gripped by its power and truth. She lives on and on, oblivious to danger but never receiving the release of Death. She whispers in Donnie's ear "Every creature in this world dies alone." Donnie later tells his therapist he doesn't want to be alone, that the belief in God is useless if everyone dies alone. The Gift of Donnie's sacrifice? Grandma Death could not be released until she received his letter which she had always been looking for. He wrote it and put in her mailbox. (He said he had so much to look forward to) When she received his letter , her presence on the road caused Frank to swerve and kill Gretchen. When Donnie sacrificed himself he was not alone. He released both Roberta Sparrow and himself and they went to the other side together!
My English English teacher showed us Donnie Darko in my sophomore year and it's been one of my favorite movies ever since. I prefer the Theatrical cut overall because I like the ambiguity, though I'm probably biased as it was the first one I saw. I even drew artwork based on the movie.
I have no idea why, but this movie always makes me tear up every time I watch it and the funnier thing is, I still what the fuck is about or if it's even about anything, such a mystery of a film. I don't even think it really exist.
Just watched this movie all day in school in the times I could so I could watch this when I got home lmao. After all the reccomemdations from biggs I had to
I also see the film another way. Say in the Prime Universe, Donnie was going to die of a freak accident, in this case the plane engine falling into his bedroom. What if the whole tangent universe was not just to see what could happen if Donnie was saved, but also if he had a chance at doing all the things he could've done if he lived, flood his school, fall in love, tell off a teacher, reveal a pedophile for justice, and in the end have the power to save everyone, and thus his death instead of being a random accident, be a token of sure meaning, that is something he himself chooses as he becomes not only a willing chooser of his fate, in an act of pure love for all, and thus be a creator of his own fate instead of an unlucky victim. In ways he is victim and causer, the ironic and the mythic, the mere nobody to god, and thus does all the important things in a life that gives his life meaning, rather than being a mere unfortunate victim to it. The journey being internal, only known to him, but accepted by him, if not remembered by anyone else. He's heroic and tragic, he wins and loses.
This video is amazing and lays the story out in a fantastic way. Even as someone who knows way too much about this movie it's still a fun and entertaining watch, even rewatching is great! One of, if not the best, donnie darko videos out there.
He's laughing because that's the effect the absurd unfairness of the situation has upon someone who has accepted the responsibility of making the ultimate sacrifice. He can die laughing and go to sleep smiling because in a sense he has nothing more to live for---the sense that, in a sense, he has already lived his life out to its fullest extent; he had his love of his life and could now no longer have it. The last thing he experienced in that timeline was gazing fondly upon her corpse, the only source of his happiness he'd had for as long as he could remember, now taken away from him for no sensible reason at all. It's all ridiculous in an etymologically literal sense. It's the kind of situation that turns your perspective on your life, if even for a moment, from a tragedy to a comedy. The bare fact of the matter being, he has to die at a young age with nothing as far as anyone else will know to show for it, simply for life for others' to go on---not even dramatically improve, just merely continue. An ordinary response would be "woe is me", but by that point he had made peace with it, and sadness was not at the forefront of his mind. He was ready to die; but it was still bullshit---so fine, whatever, seeya, have a good one.
What you're looking for is the philosophy of absurdism. Donnie realizes this, and the most common reaction to absurdism is laughter because we interpret it as funny. That's also why the movie goes so deeply into the discussion about free will and the existence of god, because an absurd reality cannot exist if god exists to give meaning. Another existential aspect of the absurdism of Donnie Darko is the love and fear line, where it is implied that Donnie created the tangent universe thanks to free will because he was afraid to die, and the reason he was afraid was because he understood that life was absurd. I actually think that even though Donnie Darko is a western movie, in terms of spirituality it's much more aligned with Buddhist ideas about material attachment. I think Donnie Darko resonated with so many because it gives a clear answer to how we can approach the absurdism of life, especially as a teenager. Donnie Darko also manages to not condemn religion while doing so. Speaking about the hero's journey, I find that the most profound examples of the hero's journey that really resonate with people involve complete self-awareness where the protagonist fully accepts their sacrifice. I think it's a sort of heroism that can't be described within the confines of the typical description of the hero, because the heroic deed is not something the hero does out of moral obligation or from their innately pure character, but because they have fully accepted their own place in the world. In comparison, tragic characters have the opposite character arc where they refuse to accept their place and it drives them to their downfall.
For me this movie's subplot is subconsciously about childhood SA (s*xual abuse). Donny was abused earlier and is now seeing his younger sister might fall prey to it as well and he goes on a quest inside his mind to figure out how to stop it.
I rented Donnie Darko when it first came out on video. I did not understand all of it, but it stuck with me for a long time. A few years later I wanted to show it to my little sister, ans I warned her that she might have difficulties understanding the movie, but to just let it athmosphere wash over her. We both understand the movie, up to a certain level, and I realized then that we had watched the Richard Kelly cut. Long story short, the impact of the emotions I felt watching the theatrical version might have been a bit less... I don't know, mystic...? But the Kelly cut made a huge impact on me still, in a slightly different way.
I recommend watching the recent video on Donnie Darko from the channel JoBlo Originals, lots of cool insight into how the film was made and some of the interesting coincidences throughout
bravo, you opened me up to a whole new perspective of the movie. I hated it for the longest time because I felt robbed by the end of it, but this actually helped me understand it more. Tbf I watched it with friends in VRChat but I can see it's pretty deep compared to what I previously saw. Now do that for Under The Silver lake and I'll be amazed lmao
I really liked your explaination/interpretation of the film, I think it was spot on. I rented this from blockbuster 20 years ago and was blown away. I absolutely loved it. I immediately showed it to all my friends and they loved it too. In addition to all the likable characters that made the movie great you failed to mention another great part of the film that elevates it in my opinion, the music! The opening song from Echo and the Bunnyman is a perfect opening song for so many reasons. Especially the sound and theme of the lyrics. So so good. And of course the school montage to Tears for Fears song "Head Over Heels" is so amazing. Finally the end song, the slower cover of Mad World ends on a perfect meloncholy note. There are also many other great songs. To me I like the theatrical cut much better as I like it more mysterious and left to your imagination. I also despise that he got rid of the opening song of Killing Moon by Echo and the Bunnyman. To me thst song is intrinsic to the magic of the film.
The Killing Moon is perfection, I cant even think about Donnie Darko without hearing it. Its also used very well in a season 1 of Im Not Okay With This, show all about teenager with superpowers/mental health issues 🤔
I, too, rented this at a Blockbuster with my boyfriend in college. Needless to say, we were confused yet blown away by how much we loved this movie. It hit us hard, especially after experiencing 9/11. I miss Blockbuster.
I didn't think Donnie "create" the time portal. He simply created the fragmented timeline by leaving his bedroom. By returning to his room he did close that time loop. Am I wrong
Yes and no since that's the annoying part about time travel stories. But in essence, in one alternate version of the plot, Donnie Darko ends up stuck in a time travel loop because he kills Frank and uses his time travel powers to send Frank back in time to wake himself up only to have the world as the tangent universe destroyed over and over again, because he doesn't make the choice to die in his bed. It's paradoxical because dead Frank also couldn't exist without Donnie killing him first, and the engine also couldn't fall on Donnie's house without him creating the wormhole. So what happens to Donnie is akin to the story of Sisyphus, where he keeps re-experiencing his own suffering until he finally accepts it and accepts that the ultimate suffering is also the erasure of himself, or in other words the true absurdity of things i.e. his life and who he is is completely meaningless and it is pointless for him to hold to it.
Me and my brother used to have a competition as to who could own the most and rarest copies of DD on dvd. I managed to find the original release which had deleted scenes in is super rare and won. Then they released the directors cut which had all the scenes and loads of other stuff like pages from the book.
How come Richard Kelly never made another good movie after that? At this point his career is basically dead, even though he could've become a new Nolan.
Donnie Darko was (and is) considered very polarizing on whether or not it’s actually good or just pretentious bs Now I personally like it but the concept he thought up is extremely out there and with how safe the film industry is now this film would never be greenlit, making it kind of lucky
Man I'm so glad to see somebody singing the praises of this film after all these years. I pretty much entirely agree with your breakdown. And i'll say, this is one of the few times I prefer the Theatrical Cut over the Director's Cut because it leans more towards Twilight Zone than Science Fiction but if you pay attention you can still see what's going on ... I mean the "Cellar Door" scene is a pretty clear example of the manipulated living even if the film doesn't introduce the concept. And the scene where Donnie asks his mom how it feels to have a wacko for a son chokes me up every time. All in all great flick. Thanks for this!
Are you being serious right now? This goofy edge lord film has been getting praise from dyed hair ninnies since release. Come on, man. Next you're going to tell me the Declaration of Independence is an underground political paper.
I saw it in 02 when my friend's gf had said it was amazing, so we all watched it on DVD. So yeah, it really spread through my school via word of mouth. This is in Aus by the way.
Superb review and analysis. I use Donnie Darko in my Creative Writing course, and it never fails to intrigue, if not confuse--but they all remember it. ❤❤
God I love this movie so much. It's a fucking masterpiece. And the head over heels needle drop is my favorite song in any movie. Not to mention the absolutely haunting score by Michael Andrews. As close to perfect as a movie could be
No way donnie created the jet engine portal it was already existing in the primary reality as it caused his death it was going to occur and turn into the black hole. It was the obstacle donnie had to deal with not create. That was beyond his power.
I favor the theatrical cut, though I wish there was a version that only included the deleted scenes - NOT the new footage or inserts - but that otherwise kept the soundtrack untouched. I can't believe the opening "needle drop" was written and filmed with "Never Tear Us Apart" in mind. I like that song and INXS in general, but I always thought the Director's cut felt off when they got rid of "Killing Moon". "Killing Moon" fit the pacing and editing far, far better, and it also worked better because it fed into the horror elements of the story; in particular, the hanging questions of "What terrible thing might Donnie do?" (which was implied throughout the movie) and "Who might die over the course of the story?"; hence, the overt nod to Stephen King (with the mom reading "It"). While the new footage in the Director's cut does help clarify what's going on, it also clearly doesn't match the overall look and feel of the rest of the film and was obviously filmed/created separately and feels kind of cheap in comparison to the higher production quality of the rest of the movie. Also, I think the ambiguity of the theatrical cut works better than the explicitness of the Director's Cut, because the theatrical cut really lent itself to a variety of interpretations without feeling meaningless or too vague.
I don't remember the marketing for Donnie Darko, and it benefitted from an aura of being a cult classic even before it was released. But it had an amazing website. One of the greatest movie webpages of all time.
What I like about this movie is that it is boring for almost 2 hours and then the last 2 minutes of the ENDING is an explosion (no pun intended) of understanding and emotions, mostly sadness thanks to the Gary Jules's song Mad World. To me, the movie gives us a single vision on the main character Donnie Darko and make us feel the way he feels from beginning to until the end. A single vision with a mixed of emotions: a sense of achievement for living his last days with high intensity and urgency (kind of a reminder from A Dead Poet Society) and sadness (knowing this is the end). The ending scene is of course my favorite of the movie and the contemplation of Donnie on the beautiful sky makes me believe he knows it has to end this way. He needs to reset the "time loop" in order to save the world, or at least save the persons he cares about. But with the price of the ultimate sacrifice: his life and most importantly the memory of his actions. From a young boy to a true hero, forever forgotten.
@@jonnowocky8179 Ah ah. I think it's boring because nothing important really happen until the end. It is like an autistic boy's journey. You live but you do not really exist, or feel like so. I may overthink this a little. Anyway, one of if not the best movie in cinema history. Donnie Darko is the best Literally me character.
![Twenty One Pilots - “The Line” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/E2Rj2gQAyPA/mqdefault.jpg)
Donnie Darko is just like me because I too am a paranoid schizophrenic in high school
Bedy nicee
No, he’s literally me
but isn't the point of the movie that he was right??
I am in your walls
he was on drugs... try them
I love the scene where Donnie says "It's Darkin' time", best shit I've ever seen
So crazy when he busted through the door and said "ITS DONNIE"
I love the comment where MylesMarrero says “It’s Marrerin’ Time” best shit i’ve ever read
And then he starts Darkin everywhere with Frank
Broski. You just killed this movie.
"You don't understand just how Donnie Dark my soul is mom"
- Frank, Donnie Darko 2001
He didn’t say that
@@2nooby2idol90 yes he did
The entire movies feels you’re in dream. Like how he challenges authority and gets the girl and all that. Don’t think Ill ever see a movie like it again
it was just an acid trip... not a time travel
@@davidl6332 where did you even get this from😭
@@davidl6332 did you watch the movie
One thing that always stood out to me the more I thought about it, Donnie Darko came out not too long after the late 90s teen movie boom, aka She's All That / Never Been Kissed / etc. where high school was where you "found yourself" and your true love and just generally peaked in life.
Donnie Darko... completely deconstructs and subverts the genre and takes a much darker view of high school, but not necessarily a nihilistic one. And that makes it stand out all the more.
90s teen movies were mostly garbage. Donnie would fit in just fine in the early 80s with teen movies like The Last American Virgin and My Bodyguard.
I like Donnie Darko because of how much I've had to think about it in order to understand it. Multiple rewatches and half a lifetime of mulling it over. There's nothing quite like it, it's a very unique and masterfully crafted piece of cinema.
I didn't know he created the portal, as a kid I interpreted it as this was a tangent universe but Donnie realizes he was powerless in all these events and that he laughed because he knew he was going to die, that his death was necessary for everyone else and that it was a coming of age thing.
He is depressed, mentally unsound, a bit selfish but by the end he sacrifices himself for everyone
I never really considered the time travel stuff as important and focused more on his journey to understand himself. It could be emotion, mental illness, spiritual or supernatural and that ambiguity made the movie special.
It's a fascinating take on philosophy, adolescence, death, and 'American dream' that is somehow wrapped in a kind of spooky yet hilarious sci-fi package with beautifully written characters. I think it's my favorite movie ever.
Donnie Darko was literally me tonight.
im always donnie darko except im a chick so im his sister Maggie Weirdo lol
I liked the extra and extended scenes in the directors cut that added more to the characters like the ones with Donnie's parents showing how they do care for him and to not feel like another background characters. I however am not a fan of the info dumps and some things feel redundant to me. If I had to explain in what I think, I believe there is a God using Donnie as a vessel to make an impact on people as they have onto him as they still remember their experiences in the tangent universe.
The Director's Cut was terrible.
@@seanmclain3278 I hate the additions in the directors cut truly they’re so out of place.
@@seanmclain3278 what did the director add if you can say please
@@garette.s_revenge in this video you can see some of the info dumps that were added in the director's cut: direct pages out of chapters of Roberta Sparrow's book, which jarringly show up in scene transitions at times, and explicitly explain things that were otherwise mostly ambiguous to some degree. There were also some extended scenes and soundtrack changes but the book images were kind of the worst addition imho
@@ComfortableTool86 thank you !
The fear part in the school was exactly the same experience I had with school, the teacher gives everyone scenarios with a preset answer and has absolutely no tolerance for nuance in them for some reason. I always got the iffy trick questions, I swear.
I'm surprised there isn't enough discussion about existentialism and religion with this movie, because that's imo what it's really about and made it resonate so much. This film is really about the philosophy of absurdism, and what made it so beautiful and haunting is how it leaves us with the idea that while our individual lives are meaningless, the impact our lives have on others is not. It's really a movie about accepting responsibility by being true in our relationships with others and to ourselves, because the only characters who wake up and weren't upset with their actions in the tangent universe where those who were true to themselves and took responsibility for their actions. Donnie didn't either until the very end, and he was also the most reluctant at doing so. Donnie doesn't wake up laughing from joy, but he does because of the absurdity of the situation of needing to die in order to let others live. He doesn't sacrifice himself out of love for others, but because it is necessary because that is simply his purpose in his life. Calling Donnie a hero in the traditional sense is therefore quite the misnomer, and calling him a Christlike figure is also therefore a misnomer. Donnie is absolutely flawed but at the moment of truth Donnie did the most painful thing a person can do which is to face himself and accept his flaw and the pain it caused him, i.e. that his life is pointless.
This is why he keeps asking people about what it's like to die and if there's meaning after death or if god exists and whether there's free will or not, because it was his fear of death and life being pointless that created the tangent universe in the first place. Donnie was presented as a hero but he never was - he was the ultimate coward. He's the villain of the story just told through his perspective. Donnie's vigilante actions don't stem from a desire for justice, but because the fear these people feel by living inauthentically is what gives power to to the tangent universe.
So I think the truth about Donnie Darko is really about suffering, and how we experience suffering when we do not live our authentic selves by not considering how we impact our relationships with others and ourselves. Donnie remains human and flawed throughout the entire narrative, he never transcends his human nature. Even at the end before he dies he suffers, but he also accepted his suffering as a necessary part of life and that's what gives him the power to end the tangent universe.
People relate because Donnie's story is such a fundamental part of the human experience that if you don't, you're either a sociopath with no ability to experience empathy and care for others, or too young to understand suffering because you've yet to truly experience it.
Donnie Darko isn't a science fiction movie or a teen movie with an edgy protagonist who acts as a wish fulfilment power fantasy, but a personal drama about the meaning of life and dealing with the inevitability that we will all die one day. And personally, that's why I love it.
A more thoughtful approach from the same era would be the Korean movie Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring again that tells the same fundamental concept through a completely different lens.
i really like this interpretation of it and it runs close to my own. The carthasis at the end of the film when he wakes up laughing at the absurdity of existence and accepting his own mortality and humanity is unmatched by anything else i've ever seen. It's the payoff that comes after spending his time in the tangent universe peeling back the layers and forcing others to confront their inauthenticity, he finally gets to face himself, and what a fucking relief.
I thought it was a parable about mental illness but heard an interview by the director and realized that he and I well, didn't really see eye to eye
Donnie Darko was a "literally me" movie when I was an edgy teenager. Still love the movie now as a slightly edgy adult.
Best version of the movie was the one that came in a two-set with Napolean Dynamite. Directors cut is good but the original version just resonated with me more. Love how you went into the different interpretations and all that. Great discussion that get straight to the point.
IT CAME IN A TWO-SET DVD BUNDLE WITH NAPOLEAN DYNAMITE???
@@notouchy It doeeeesss ffrrrrrr
I got to see the theatrical version when in came out in one of those few 50 theatres that showed it in Eugene, OR, blew my mind and stuck with me....
Two-set DVD bundle of Donnie Darko and Napolean Dynamite is an unexpected, but perfect duo
Also with that DVD info now the fanart i saw of frank and napoleon makes sense
i like the director’s cut because it added some information we didn’t know without, but i hated that they changed the intro song from “the killing moon”, and how there wasn’t enough left up to interpretation.
the reason i fell in love with this movie in the forst place was because of the implicit information, rather than the explicit. it provided enough that you could make up the narrative around the events onscreen, but the director’s cut didn’t leave much room for filling in the gaps.
frank being donnie's sister (Elizabeth darko) boy friend makes so much sense, as frank appears near by the Donnie's house and the last person who entered the house was Elizabeth before the jet engine accident, from her reaction they probably got into argument. and when Donnie wakes up. the manipulated dead frank took normal frank's place due to the tangent universe, that adds so much context then him being some random kid.
This is one of the few movies that I actually enjoyed the director's cut more. Also, I interpreted Donnie waking up laughing as him feeling euphoric that he'd fulfilled his purpose, like an intense feeling of everything being in its right place. Even though he was about to meet a tragic end, he had saved all his loved ones and he would no longer be haunted by Frank's ghost or suffer bouts of sleepwalking. He could finally rest.
Radiohead
the owl magnet by franks message on the fridge at the party is always caught my eye. Owls are said to be messengers of the dead in mythology
an entirely new layer that most people would just look over. this movie is insane and I love it. 🤯🥰
Donnie Darko is a film that was waaay ahead of its time during the time it was made. I'm glad to see it finally getting the appreciation it deserves. The characters, the story, the visuals, the postmodernism, this movie is absolutely amazing.
The time travel plot is interesting. I had always thought the film was about death in a sort of predestined sense and that the end of the world was not intact the end of the world but rather the end of his world.
I remember being a kid in high school who was in therapy because authorities deemed me problematic because I socked a bully in the face for relentless bullying. Was put on meds and misdiagnosed. But the meds had side effects. So Donnie is my literally me, I had it first.
Why wasn’t the bully in therapy?
The directors cut also has a commentary track with Richard Kelly and Kevin Smith. Worth the listen if your trying to figure out the story. Kevin does a great job of asking question.
Boys will watch a movie about a serial killer and say "he's literally me."
Hot take
Boys will watch a movie
Yes
*men
Girls will watch a movie about a serial killer and say “he’s so hot.”
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
I prefer the director’s cut. Hearing Echo & The Bunnymen’s “Killing Moon” be the opening song as he rides his bike back home truly sets the mood.
Hell, the whole soundtrack is great and truly gives in to that late 80s setting. I can’t hear Joy Division now without thinking of them hopping out of the back of the bus as it begins playing, and Duran Duran? Sparkle Motion. Mad World? A memey song now, but fits perfectly with the ending.
I remember coming across a blogpost about the movie’s website and how you needed passwords to navigate it, which got me interested in it with the whole time travel ordeal. Downloaded the movie from SoulSeek and fell in love with it for some reason. Eventually got the DVD a few years later.
It’s a strange one, but I love watching it when October rolls around. Just about everyone I’ve watched it with ends up confused, so they’ll rewatch it a time or two to make sense of everything, ultimately becoming one of those movies they also end up enjoying in the process. My husband considered it one of those “weird movies that the strange kids in high school latched onto because they read about it on DeadJournal” … and well, he wasn’t wrong lol. Still watches it with me, though.
Definitely fits the whole Halloween vibe
17:21 Donnie Darko was HUGE in the UK. I remember it was absolutely everywhere here during that time.
Donnie Darko's time travel is actually pretty tightly plotted compared to most time travel movies.
Simply, it explains how time is self-contained, and any changes brought about by time travel creates a new Universe, though in this case, it is merely a fractional Universe that is time-bound in a self-contained causality loop.
Never mind that the mechanisms never made any sense. Time machines never make any sense, anyway.
Apply for a FUTO fellowship program here!
futo.org/fellows/
The dog statue is probs hollow.no stregnth needed
I think I prefer the theatrical cut to the directors purely because the theatrical muddles the waters genre-wise, its unclear whether what is happening is magical or science fiction, it never tells you, whereas the director is much more clear on it being sci-fi orientated removing some of that essential ambiguity. Although I do love the excellent dvd commentary on the directors cut from Kevin Smith and Richard Kelly, who both made their debut feature films around similar ages and talk on how that impacts you creatively, it has excellent insight on both filmmaker's methods.
Science, magic, its all the same to me
Thank you for pumping this one out on Halloween for us! 🐇✈️💀
Bunny, Plane, Skull. Good synopsis.
this is the Literally Me I've been waiting for.
the one that in my opinion started it all.
A few years back one of my friends that I trust for having really good taste recommended this movie to me. The upload no longer exists but at the time it had an official upload that was free to watch on RUclips. I had no idea what it was and I'm so thankful that's how I was exposed to it, I really think going in completely blind to this movie only heightened the experience. They sold it to me as being one of their favorite movies and I can easily see why, the movie is so interesting I remember as soon as it was over spending the next hour doing research to just understand the movie better and learn everything I could about it. I've still only watched it that one time, but it's stuck with me. I think about returning to it constantly but it's one of those movies where I want to focus all of my attention on it to absorb as much of it as possible, and I'm so busy now that it's just a tall order. Now that I know there's a director's cut I'll have to make sure I seek that out and watch it.
Excellent video as always Kino, was so excited when I saw you were doing this movie that I took time out of my vacation to make sure I watched it.
Bro I just finished this movie for Halloween and 5 minutes later you instantly upload this after, I finished this movie thinking, "he is literally me"
2 am, perfect time for a literally me video
After my brother Died I watched this movie and man what a trip this movie is. My mom and my little brother were both schizophrenic
i always thought that when donnie shot frank he realized that the plane engine was the deus ex machina that killed him and saved the world
I haven't seen this movie. But there's a phenomenon where, if some completely random accident happens to some people, and I hear about it, there's a part of me that feels as though those people chose to be there, and that makes it okay. Like, if I hear there was a terrible plane crash and a bunch of people died, I get this feeling that it's okay because those people knew they were going to be on a crashing plane, and knew that they would die, and chose to do it. It happens with almost any random accident that I hear about. I am more or less conscious of it when I'm feeling this way. It's also an awareness that 'it didn't happen to me,' like I'm disconnecting from what happened. This feeling or interpretation reassures me that it's okay that those people died, and reassures me that I'm okay and that I am disconnected from them. I don't have to connect too much to what happened to them, and I can go on with my own life. I may have moved past this way of seeing things, because I can't remember seeing it that way anytime recently, but I did used to see it that way years ago. I may have more of a harsh view nowadays: I'm opposed to 'blaming the victim,' and instead, I accept the fact that people can really be a helpless victim of a terrible force that is more powerful than they are, without rationalizing that they chose to be victimized. I believe in the existence of real powerlessness.
This was my favorite movie growing up, and it's still up there for me. Great video, dude.
I rented this film at a Blockbuster years ago and fell in love with it. One key element for me was Roberta Sparrow's or "Grandma Death's" repeated visits to the mailbox. I think she was not being a senile old woman. She was caught in a time warp after writing her book and became gripped by its power and truth. She lives on and on, oblivious to danger but never receiving the release of Death. She whispers in Donnie's ear "Every creature in this world dies alone." Donnie later tells his therapist he doesn't want to be alone, that the belief in God is useless if everyone dies alone. The Gift of Donnie's sacrifice? Grandma Death could not be released until she received his letter which she had always been looking for. He wrote it and put in her mailbox. (He said he had so much to look forward to) When she received his letter , her presence on the road caused Frank to swerve and kill Gretchen. When Donnie sacrificed himself he was not alone. He released both Roberta Sparrow and himself and they went to the other side together!
My English English teacher showed us Donnie Darko in my sophomore year and it's been one of my favorite movies ever since. I prefer the Theatrical cut overall because I like the ambiguity, though I'm probably biased as it was the first one I saw. I even drew artwork based on the movie.
I have no idea why, but this movie always makes me tear up every time I watch it and the funnier thing is, I still what the fuck is about or if it's even about anything, such a mystery of a film.
I don't even think it really exist.
Yk ur life is going downhill when donnie darko has a better life than you 😭
Just watched this movie all day in school in the times I could so I could watch this when I got home lmao. After all the reccomemdations from biggs I had to
This made video made me watch Donnie darko and I was hooked from the start
I also see the film another way. Say in the Prime Universe, Donnie was going to die of a freak accident, in this case the plane engine falling into his bedroom. What if the whole tangent universe was not just to see what could happen if Donnie was saved, but also if he had a chance at doing all the things he could've done if he lived, flood his school, fall in love, tell off a teacher, reveal a pedophile for justice, and in the end have the power to save everyone, and thus his death instead of being a random accident, be a token of sure meaning, that is something he himself chooses as he becomes not only a willing chooser of his fate, in an act of pure love for all, and thus be a creator of his own fate instead of an unlucky victim. In ways he is victim and causer, the ironic and the mythic, the mere nobody to god, and thus does all the important things in a life that gives his life meaning, rather than being a mere unfortunate victim to it. The journey being internal, only known to him, but accepted by him, if not remembered by anyone else. He's heroic and tragic, he wins and loses.
This is an excellent perspective. Well expressed!
Impressive very nice now let’s see Jake Gyllenhaal’s other literary me movie: Nightcrawler
first thing came to mind, parallels worlds, especially at the end.
Had the opportunity to watch it at the cinema last year, unfortunately not the directors cut, still an awesome experience
Has been years since I saw it but I know that when I saw it, I didn't have the interpretation that Donnie had any active idea of what's going on.
This video is amazing and lays the story out in a fantastic way. Even as someone who knows way too much about this movie it's still a fun and entertaining watch, even rewatching is great! One of, if not the best, donnie darko videos out there.
He's laughing because that's the effect the absurd unfairness of the situation has upon someone who has accepted the responsibility of making the ultimate sacrifice. He can die laughing and go to sleep smiling because in a sense he has nothing more to live for---the sense that, in a sense, he has already lived his life out to its fullest extent; he had his love of his life and could now no longer have it. The last thing he experienced in that timeline was gazing fondly upon her corpse, the only source of his happiness he'd had for as long as he could remember, now taken away from him for no sensible reason at all.
It's all ridiculous in an etymologically literal sense. It's the kind of situation that turns your perspective on your life, if even for a moment, from a tragedy to a comedy. The bare fact of the matter being, he has to die at a young age with nothing as far as anyone else will know to show for it, simply for life for others' to go on---not even dramatically improve, just merely continue. An ordinary response would be "woe is me", but by that point he had made peace with it, and sadness was not at the forefront of his mind. He was ready to die; but it was still bullshit---so fine, whatever, seeya, have a good one.
What you're looking for is the philosophy of absurdism. Donnie realizes this, and the most common reaction to absurdism is laughter because we interpret it as funny. That's also why the movie goes so deeply into the discussion about free will and the existence of god, because an absurd reality cannot exist if god exists to give meaning. Another existential aspect of the absurdism of Donnie Darko is the love and fear line, where it is implied that Donnie created the tangent universe thanks to free will because he was afraid to die, and the reason he was afraid was because he understood that life was absurd.
I actually think that even though Donnie Darko is a western movie, in terms of spirituality it's much more aligned with Buddhist ideas about material attachment. I think Donnie Darko resonated with so many because it gives a clear answer to how we can approach the absurdism of life, especially as a teenager. Donnie Darko also manages to not condemn religion while doing so.
Speaking about the hero's journey, I find that the most profound examples of the hero's journey that really resonate with people involve complete self-awareness where the protagonist fully accepts their sacrifice. I think it's a sort of heroism that can't be described within the confines of the typical description of the hero, because the heroic deed is not something the hero does out of moral obligation or from their innately pure character, but because they have fully accepted their own place in the world. In comparison, tragic characters have the opposite character arc where they refuse to accept their place and it drives them to their downfall.
For me this movie's subplot is subconsciously about childhood SA (s*xual abuse).
Donny was abused earlier and is now seeing his younger sister might fall prey to it as well and he goes on a quest inside his mind to figure out how to stop it.
I rented Donnie Darko when it first came out on video. I did not understand all of it, but it stuck with me for a long time.
A few years later I wanted to show it to my little sister, ans I warned her that she might have difficulties understanding the movie, but to just let it athmosphere wash over her. We both understand the movie, up to a certain level, and I realized then that we had watched the Richard Kelly cut. Long story short, the impact of the emotions I felt watching the theatrical version might have been a bit less... I don't know, mystic...? But the Kelly cut made a huge impact on me still, in a slightly different way.
Ah, yes, a 2D girlfriend. You are literally me fr fr.
Same.
Saaaame
I recommend watching the recent video on Donnie Darko from the channel JoBlo Originals, lots of cool insight into how the film was made and some of the interesting coincidences throughout
No one:
Jake Gyllenhaal: Donnie Darko is LITERALLY me.
its simple quiet characters let you pretend youre them just because they dont express their own opinions
donnie isn’t a quiet character
Reserved =! quiet
I love Donnie because he's an anti-conformist
Amen!
2:48 Idk why Possession is in the background, but that same exact scene was on a TV at a bar I went to on Halloween night
bravo, you opened me up to a whole new perspective of the movie. I hated it for the longest time because I felt robbed by the end of it, but this actually helped me understand it more. Tbf I watched it with friends in VRChat but I can see it's pretty deep compared to what I previously saw.
Now do that for Under The Silver lake and I'll be amazed lmao
@text me via telegram👉Kino_Corner The REAL Kino Corner doesn't use Telegram lmao
I had to watch this movie four times to understand it because I was so stoned and hungover when I watched it lmao
I'm glad you still around talking about the literally us movies 🍻
I really liked your explaination/interpretation of the film, I think it was spot on. I rented this from blockbuster 20 years ago and was blown away. I absolutely loved it. I immediately showed it to all my friends and they loved it too. In addition to all the likable characters that made the movie great you failed to mention another great part of the film that elevates it in my opinion, the music! The opening song from Echo and the Bunnyman is a perfect opening song for so many reasons. Especially the sound and theme of the lyrics. So so good. And of course the school montage to Tears for Fears song "Head Over Heels" is so amazing. Finally the end song, the slower cover of Mad World ends on a perfect meloncholy note. There are also many other great songs. To me I like the theatrical cut much better as I like it more mysterious and left to your imagination. I also despise that he got rid of the opening song of Killing Moon by Echo and the Bunnyman. To me thst song is intrinsic to the magic of the film.
The Killing Moon is perfection, I cant even think about Donnie Darko without hearing it. Its also used very well in a season 1 of Im Not Okay With This, show all about teenager with superpowers/mental health issues 🤔
I, too, rented this at a Blockbuster with my boyfriend in college. Needless to say, we were confused yet blown away by how much we loved this movie. It hit us hard, especially after experiencing 9/11. I miss Blockbuster.
I didn't think Donnie "create" the time portal. He simply created the fragmented timeline by leaving his bedroom. By returning to his room he did close that time loop. Am I wrong
Yes and no since that's the annoying part about time travel stories. But in essence, in one alternate version of the plot, Donnie Darko ends up stuck in a time travel loop because he kills Frank and uses his time travel powers to send Frank back in time to wake himself up only to have the world as the tangent universe destroyed over and over again, because he doesn't make the choice to die in his bed. It's paradoxical because dead Frank also couldn't exist without Donnie killing him first, and the engine also couldn't fall on Donnie's house without him creating the wormhole.
So what happens to Donnie is akin to the story of Sisyphus, where he keeps re-experiencing his own suffering until he finally accepts it and accepts that the ultimate suffering is also the erasure of himself, or in other words the true absurdity of things i.e. his life and who he is is completely meaningless and it is pointless for him to hold to it.
Me and my brother used to have a competition as to who could own the most and rarest copies of DD on dvd. I managed to find the original release which had deleted scenes in is super rare and won.
Then they released the directors cut which had all the scenes and loads of other stuff like pages from the book.
How come Richard Kelly never made another good movie after that? At this point his career is basically dead, even though he could've become a new Nolan.
Donnie Darko was (and is) considered very polarizing on whether or not it’s actually good or just pretentious bs
Now I personally like it but the concept he thought up is extremely out there and with how safe the film industry is now this film would never be greenlit, making it kind of lucky
The commentary on the Director's Cut makes it pretty obvious Kelly stumbled into making a classic quite by accident lol
i just watched this movie and i was so confused but this video is so great thank you for making it
Chilling on the couch watching possession with frank is such a fucking mood.
Man I'm so glad to see somebody singing the praises of this film after all these years. I pretty much entirely agree with your breakdown. And i'll say, this is one of the few times I prefer the Theatrical Cut over the Director's Cut because it leans more towards Twilight Zone than Science Fiction but if you pay attention you can still see what's going on ... I mean the "Cellar Door" scene is a pretty clear example of the manipulated living even if the film doesn't introduce the concept. And the scene where Donnie asks his mom how it feels to have a wacko for a son chokes me up every time. All in all great flick. Thanks for this!
Are you being serious right now? This goofy edge lord film has been getting praise from dyed hair ninnies since release. Come on, man. Next you're going to tell me the Declaration of Independence is an underground political paper.
@@ciscornBIG I might have written an honest response to this if you hadn't attributed the praise to 'dyed hair ninnies.' Be better.
Brazil is literally me bro
@@ciscornBIGBig yikes. Hope you're better now.
Joseph Campbell's Heros Journey is in every single solitary PIXAR film ❤
FINDING JOE is a great video explaining the heros journey.
🌈 💜 🌈
we can all relate to donnie because feels completely alone and knowing anything otherwise isn't conclusive
I saw it in 02 when my friend's gf had said it was amazing, so we all watched it on DVD. So yeah, it really spread through my school via word of mouth. This is in Aus by the way.
Superb review and analysis. I use Donnie Darko in my Creative Writing course, and it never fails to intrigue, if not confuse--but they all remember it. ❤❤
Donnie Darko had to have been my first male crush.
First "art" film i ever watched in highschool
God I love this movie so much. It's a fucking masterpiece. And the head over heels needle drop is my favorite song in any movie. Not to mention the absolutely haunting score by Michael Andrews. As close to perfect as a movie could be
was highly considering going to a screening of this in a Frank costume but didn’t end up doing it
are you still considering it, now you're not high?
You don't have to be high to be a committed fan^
Now I have to rewatch this.
I hated it, the first time I watched it. But it stuck in my mind to the point I had to watch it again. Now, it is one of my favourites.
Could have been mistaken for one of David Lynch's "fever dreams" and likewise needs to be seen more than once.
I haven't met anyone who thinks the director's cut is better than the theatrical release.
No way donnie created the jet engine portal it was already existing in the primary reality as it caused his death it was going to occur and turn into the black hole. It was the obstacle donnie had to deal with not create. That was beyond his power.
I favor the theatrical cut, though I wish there was a version that only included the deleted scenes - NOT the new footage or inserts - but that otherwise kept the soundtrack untouched.
I can't believe the opening "needle drop" was written and filmed with "Never Tear Us Apart" in mind. I like that song and INXS in general, but I always thought the Director's cut felt off when they got rid of "Killing Moon". "Killing Moon" fit the pacing and editing far, far better, and it also worked better because it fed into the horror elements of the story; in particular, the hanging questions of "What terrible thing might Donnie do?" (which was implied throughout the movie) and "Who might die over the course of the story?"; hence, the overt nod to Stephen King (with the mom reading "It").
While the new footage in the Director's cut does help clarify what's going on, it also clearly doesn't match the overall look and feel of the rest of the film and was obviously filmed/created separately and feels kind of cheap in comparison to the higher production quality of the rest of the movie.
Also, I think the ambiguity of the theatrical cut works better than the explicitness of the Director's Cut, because the theatrical cut really lent itself to a variety of interpretations without feeling meaningless or too vague.
Damn, I'm so into your videos, you got me hooked- great stuff!
Jacob’s Ladder when?
WTF. Literally just watched this like 20 minutes ago, why are the feds watching me?!? Stop get out of my head...
I like the hints of the upcoming Possession video. Also, it's obviously aliens using Donnie to get us into the worst timeline.
1:04
I said 2d the moment his friend asked.
Literraly me!
Based
I am Donnie darko please leave me alone
My fav movie. The director's cut sucked though. I liked the ambiguity of the theatrical release
Quite strange that it polarized people at Sundance. Sundance is supposed to be THAT alternate movie festival.
Donnie Darko is about the Death of the American Dream...oh wait, that's Death of a Salesman.
I don't remember the marketing for Donnie Darko, and it benefitted from an aura of being a cult classic even before it was released. But it had an amazing website. One of the greatest movie webpages of all time.
HYPE, my favorite movie. Thank you!
What I like about this movie is that it is boring for almost 2 hours and then the last 2 minutes of the ENDING is an explosion (no pun intended) of understanding and emotions, mostly sadness thanks to the Gary Jules's song Mad World. To me, the movie gives us a single vision on the main character Donnie Darko and make us feel the way he feels from beginning to until the end. A single vision with a mixed of emotions: a sense of achievement for living his last days with high intensity and urgency (kind of a reminder from A Dead Poet Society) and sadness (knowing this is the end). The ending scene is of course my favorite of the movie and the contemplation of Donnie on the beautiful sky makes me believe he knows it has to end this way. He needs to reset the "time loop" in order to save the world, or at least save the persons he cares about. But with the price of the ultimate sacrifice: his life and most importantly the memory of his actions. From a young boy to a true hero, forever forgotten.
How did you manage to find the energy to type so much about a film you say is boring for two hours? 😂
@@jonnowocky8179 Ah ah. I think it's boring because nothing important really happen until the end. It is like an autistic boy's journey. You live but you do not really exist, or feel like so. I may overthink this a little. Anyway, one of if not the best movie in cinema history. Donnie Darko is the best Literally me character.
>boring
Lol
Chut up!
Donnie Darko is a Hollywood movie that nails New Thought gurus and that alone makes it important.
when i watched this movie i literally broke down in a mental crisis because i felt i was donnie lol